opinions on which european car i should buy(limited budget)

[Dr Smith]

Can I give you some advice ... As one who is visited regularly by reps (I'm not a corporate CEO but I do own the business) if someone turned up in an "old" euro trying to do "big business deals" I would consider them a "try hard" just as Flappist stated. Most reps/consultants have company cars/novated and I would expect them to turn up in something new, lets face it a company doing well has a well maintained fleet, turned over regularly. Unless the car was some classic, big buck baby then I might think otherwise, but most unlikely.

I don't think I read how many km's you were going to average however if it is quite high, say 50K+ I'd go as new as you can, finance it and pick an upper spec model of whatever brand. You need to get to your appointments on time, (I hate people being late because I'm then late for others) as this will impress me more then a 10+ year old BMW in the carpark in front of my offfice. If a person rolled up in a G6ET or Merc C63, it's not the car which will win my business, it's the person I'm meeting, the relationship we strike up, and the service/product they offer. A butt hole in a $300,000 S class is still a butt hole. If your potential clients are so heavily swayed by what you drive then the next rep in the "better" credentialed car will beat you out and so on.